The Testing

When you're editing and proofreading a work of fiction, I imagine it would be useful to keep a set of notes to track consistency with character descriptions, events, behaviors, etc. When editing a game, however, this doesn't work as well, because there is so much that needs to be tracked. The only way (that I've found) to make sure your editing is sufficiently extensive is to play-test the material.

So I've started some initial testing on my own while I work on putting together the first testing group and it's been a real eye-opener. I spent several months reading and polishing the pre-print draft of 2nd ed. Renaissance, making sure rules were fleshed out and complete, grammar correct, mechanics aligned properly, etc. When finished, I ordered the first printed draft (with no small amount of excitement) and began working on test adventures.

Alongside the design of the adventures, I decided to do a little testing of my own while I wait for the printed draft to come in. It's going well, but already I'm finding small things which slipped through the cracks. Small, but significant. For example, I did not mention how many spells a character skilled in wizardry begins with, or at what skill level. *fixed*. There are other, even smaller things: a re-wording here, an extra line there. All these things which, when just proof-reading, you don't notice. But when you start trying to use the system, pop out at you. The page numbers on my table of contents are already obsolete, but I'm enjoying the process nonetheless. I'm looking forward to getting a group together to test further, and I'm even more excited about finishing the testing adventures and sending them out for public testing.